Tuesday, January 10, 2017

A newly published poll commissioned by the government suggests Canadians aren't as keen on investing in the high-tech "new economy" as the Liberals and have mixed views on increasing immigration.The survey, conducted last summer, found most Canadians want the government to focus infrastructure spending on "traditional" projects like public transit.It also found many Canadians were concerned terrorism was more likely to increase than decrease, with some blaming that on higher levels of immigration and a perceived lack of screening of refugees.You can read the rest of this article here.

14 comments:

In the last 30 years Canada has welcomed roughly 8 million newcomers. No wonder we have housing crises in many cities; we've increased the population by 50% over 1987 but, I doubt if housing the stock kept pace. It certainly didn't in Vancouver. Allowing 250,000+ immigrants per annum is far to many. Society and its infrastructure struggle to keep pace. Immigration needs to be at a sustainable level for everyone so that we can plan and avoid housing shortages and other problems and allow society to catch up. Allowing the population to grow at 1% per year causes resentment among many especially those struggling to find work or trying to access government services. Leitch may be wrong but, she is also right for the wrong reasons.

Ghost,If you go to StatsCan, you’ll see there have been roughly 6.43 million newcomers in Canada in the last 30 years. We allowed 2.94 million newcomers into Canada between 1900 and 1914, when we had a much smaller population. The fact is that since 1996-1998, the majority of our economic and population growth has come from immigration. If you factor in the higher birth rates amongst newcomers, the situation is even more dire.Immigration is good economic policy, while attacking it will always remain an easy political target.

Possession is nine tenth of the law. Canadians are more than competent and right to decide how many newcomers we wish to welcome every year and what requirements those newcomers must adhere to.

If the populations of Vancouver, Toronto and Montreal double over the next 30 years do you think those cities will be nice places to live? They will be if we can plan and build for the influx but, if we fail to have the infrastructure; social, economic and material the cities will deteriorate into unholy messes.

Canada has done its part and then some when it comes to immigrants. With Liberal deficits projected until sometime in the 2050s it is time we took care of ourselves and allowed the communities where newcomers will live to prepare, plan and build for their future.

We know ISIS and other groups send operatives abroad through the refugee process and immigration systems of Western countries. This is fact not speculation and we know Canada has been named as a target. At present Canada has an inadequate response to these threats.

We need an immigration system capable of spoting and stopping these bad apples and operatives. Right now Canada does not have such a system. I doubt screening for "Canadian values" will be completely effective in this process but some form of screening is necessary and the alternatives to screening for Canadian values are far more invasive.

I suspect the vast majority of Syrian refugees would have passed since, Canadian values are human values.

Secondly, Canada is full. We have made commitments to reduce our global emissions 30% below 1990 levels by what 2030 or 2050? If we allow our population to increase by nearly 1% per year simply through immigration we will not meet our commitments. Trudeau by agreeing to the Paris Accord has made it impossible for us to do both: Never mind that we as yet do not understand the full impact climate change may have on our agricultural and water resources.

I would propose we curtail our acceptance of immigrants until such time as Aboriginal Canadians achieve the same standard of living as Canadians. Until that time we should focus our humanitarian resources on those segments of the population and people who are struggling within Canada. Charity begins at home.

The idea that ISIS is widely using the refugee process to spread is as creditable as the idea of being arrested to get drugs from the seizure room of the police department. It’s much easier just to talk to someone on the street corner. That’s why none of western attacks are by “ISIS” refugees, and most are home-grown terrorists. Much more likely is that refugees are susceptible to radicalization due to the extensive process.

I am assuming you have limited direct experience with our immigration system, because there are extensive screening processes in place. Anecdotally, I know someone that was denied their permanent resident visa after CIC talked to an ex-girlfriend from 8 years previous that had been left off the application. A typical application is 350-400 pages thick and takes anywhere from 8 months to 4 years (parental and grandparent visas are down to a four year wait from a peak of 10-years in 2012 after they stopped in 2013-14 then capped new applications since 2015).

The idea that limiting immigration will allow us “time to take care of ourselves” is contradictory. We have an aging population and without immigration to support the work force, we have a declining tax base. Immigration allows us to better support our elderly, poor, and Indigenous groups.

Canada’s GHG target was 30% below 2005 levels by 2030. This is equivalent to a target of 14.5% below 1990 levels. They have fallen 8% since a peak in 2007 while we have welcomed 2.5M new Canadians. We are all immigrants or the children of them. It’s just a matter of when we came to Canada.

We do good, not because it is easy, but because it is hard. Charity is an open heart and open hand; realising that no matter how much or little we have, we are enriched by sharing it with others.

Every serious intelligence document for the last five years has noted ISIS, DAESH, Islamic State, ISIL, Al-Qaida and others have used the refugee and immigration systems of Western countries to plant operatives. This is fact. Do some research.

My point is Peter, Canada will have a hard time doing both. We need to focus. Yes, we have an aging population but, at a lower immigration level it is still manageable and we'll still get economic growth with money, time and resources left over to fix the many deficits among our long-suffering Indigenous people.

I disagree re limiting immigration. And the current rules and regulations are more than adequate to protect us. Leitch is looking for a political "advantage" and she has picked a bad one.Make it less expensive to build housing and the problems will disappear !!

It's not the cost of building a house that is the problem. A 2000 sq. Ft. home in Vancouver would cost $600,000-$1,000,000 to build. It is the land cost that is determined by demand. If we bring in 250,000+ people every year we increase demand. Every ten years we have to build a city the equivalent size to Metro Vancouver. Canada is running out of land near our urban centres. BC has had to impose a foreign buyers' tax and only after it did so property prices declined.

In the case of Vancouver and Toronto real estate price is not being driven by demand per se. The demand is created by the need to withdraw often ill-begotten money from China-not the need for residential real estate. It is not the only cause to be sure; domestic speculators and the willingness of cities (especially the supposedly Green Vancouver) to allow demolition of perfectly habitable single family homes share equal blame but; it is really the need to get money out of China that fuels the whole cycle. Why? because if you have money in China the Government can simply take it and you have no recourse or appeal either through the Courts or politically. Once you've made money in China the worst place to keep your money is China.

Canadian municipal, regional and provincial governments share a good deal of the blame for the housing crises. We allowed so much valuable real estate to be captured by single-family-suburbs from the 50's-90's. If densification happened in the 50's, 60's and 70's we would not be in the mess we find ourselves today. Instead we're forced to impose density on long standing single family neighbourhoods dramatically increasing property prices. So, there is enough blame to go round but, unfortunately, the solution is to reduce immigration thereby lowering demand and price increases enabling the over all market return to equilibrium.

COMMENT MODERATION POLICY - Please be respectful when commenting. If choosing to remain anonymous, please sign your comment with some sort of pseudonym to avoid confusion. Please do not use any derogatory terms for fellow commenters, parties, or politicians. Inflammatory and overly partisan comments will not be posted. PLEASE KEEP DISCUSSION ON TOPIC.

Details on the methodology of the poll aggregation and seat projections are available here and here. Methodology for the forecasting model used during election campaigns is available here.

Projections on this site are subject to the margins of error of the opinion polls included in the model, as well as the unpredictable nature of politics at the riding level. The degree of uncertainty in the projections is also reflected by the projections' high and low ranges, when noted.

ThreeHundredEight.com is a non-partisan site and is committed to reporting on polls responsibly.